Limbo

It seems wrong to suggest that things would have been better if Anthony had died the night of the accident. Of course, so much would have been worse. As it was, Joseph saw his grandfather get hurt. He didn't see him killed. As we deal with the hurt, I can't fathom how much worse it would be if he had seen him die that night.

And then there's Matthew. He had time to say goodbye, to make his peace with the loss in the best way he could. He doesn't deal well with change himself, so wading into the shallow end was probably for the best.

But there is something to be said for clean breaks.

After Matthew was released from the hospital, we went home. Joseph was still our immediate concern. With my father-in-law in a trauma ICU, there was nothing we could do three hours away in a waiting room. We couldn't bring Joseph. We couldn't leave Joseph. We ended up in constant contact with his doctors, speaking to them every time they rounded. Talking to nurses at every shift change, and with every change in his status. Calls when he changed treatments. When he needed surgery. When he needed blood, or anesthesia, or when we just needed to know what was going on. We planned our days based on cell phone towers, and since we live in a dead zone, we would call the nurse's station every time we left the house, and every time we got back, so they knew what phone number to call if they needed us.

We did that for a week. And then we had to go down to Pittsburgh to have meetings with the doctors. It would be the first time they suggested he might be dying, and that we might want to let it happen. That was not a conversation to have with Joseph around, so we took him to my sister's house and let him have three cousins, three dogs and a turtle to keep him company and distract him. It worked, a little. He was fine while he was with Aunt Becky, although she had to call us frequently to let him talk to us. Two days later when we picked him up? He burst into tears in the car, latched onto us like a barnacle and cried for days that "I missed you when I was at Aunt Becky's!" Six months later, he still says it every time we go for a drive.

For weeks, Anthony would get better, we would make plans for his rehabilitation, and Joseph would even get to talk to him on the phone now and then. And then it would all fall apart, usually the day before he was scheduled to be transferred to a nursing home closer to us. We stopped telling Joseph that Grandpa was coming home because it was just too upsetting for him when the timeline would change. We would get a call that told us he would probably be dead in hours, throw ourselves in the car, and by the time we got to Pittsburgh, confused nurses would wonder why anyone told us that.

No one knew what was happening for six weeks. Day to day, hour to hour, our lives revolved around whether Anthony would live or die. Joseph's revolved around one sentence. "I miss my Grandpa."